Pages

Blog Search:

Loading...

Friday, 14 September 2012

Really Existing Democracy.

The incumbent President has come out of the Democratic National Convention smiling only to be confronted with upheaval in the Middle East. Yet the approval rating of the candidates, the atmospheric desperation and mediocre speeches of the Conventions are more or less irrelevant. As Mark Hanna would remind us "There are two things that are important
in politics. The first is money and I can't remember the second." Follow the money and you'll find the winner. It was Bush who outspent his opponents in 2000 and 2004, he didn't even need to win over enough votes - the cash was enough. When Obama got in there was a gap of over $400 million between his campaign and McCain's. Incidentally the Obama campaign won the award for the best marketing campaign of 2008. What's the situation in 2012? It
was predicted that campaign contributions would exceed $1 billion. So far Romney had raised over $193 million whereas Obama had raised almost $350 million.

What does all of this signify? Well it's important to take from this that the United States is not really a democracy in the strict sense. Instead it might be better understood as a polyarchy.Polyarchy
can be understood as a system in which a multiplicity of political
parties - who represent a coterie of powerful interests - compete with
one another to govern the society. The political class faces a dual
constituency, in which the needs and wants of the poor come second to
the needs and wants of the rich. The convergence of interests plays a
huge role in political concessions and development in general. But we
can debate the extent to which interests overlap and produce a
particular outcome. After all, there is an opposition within capitalist
relations between the interests of workers and bosses. The political
processes may even be seen as purely managerial in this sense, the
working-class has to be managed in such a way as to slot into a mandate.

It
seems more or less compatible with Thomas Ferguson's investment theory
of politics, where the political parties represent blocs of investors.
The
standard split in American politics can be drawn between high-tech
capital intensive and low-tech labour intensive business, the latter
being more nationally oriented than the former. The Republican Party
responds to the interests of a specific slice of American capital, which
seeks to drive down labour costs through anti-union measures and
insulate itself from foreign competition. By contrast the Democratic
Party was capable of the New Deal because it represented a portion of
capital which could tolerate unionisation that would leave it unscathed.
It's worth noting that the major support for Franklin Roosevelt came
out of banking and oil. So the New Deal reforms could scathe the
interests of industrialists to improve the living standards of workers
because it did little to harm the interests of finance and energy.

There are said to be ten lobbyists for every member of Congress looking to shoot down any attempt at significant financial regulation. That's not all. The situation has worsened since then
and the Obama campaign accepted over $745 million in 2008 and the
campaign team went on to win an award for the best marketing campaign of
2008. Since then the Supreme Court has removed all obstacles to even
greater corporate influence on elections and has legalised the
unrestricted flow of corporate dough into the campaign war-chests. We
shouldn't forget that the Bush administration set a major precedent in US history. Bush did not need to win
over the electorate to attain office, the immense support from Big Business was enough
and the US Supreme Court made sure the interests of Corporate America
were not opposed in the election. At least there may be cause for celebration in the fact that the contributions have not yet reached $1 billion as predicted.

2 comments:

I think it's possible through adverts, though I'm unsure of the specifics as I'm not into this for money. The purpose of the blog can be debated. It could be seen as a free-for-all arrangement where anyone can post their innermost thoughts and feelings on a subject. This blog is particularly focused on questions of the political, philosophical and cultural.

A great site:

Hits this Month:

The Gutter-Press:

"The journalist's 'lack of convictions', the prostitution of his experiences and beliefs is comprehensible only as the apogee of capitalist reification." - Georg Lukács

Follow by Email:

Tories:

"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin." - Aneurin Bevan

Decadence:

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests." - Gore Vidal

Banks:

Free to Choose:

"One can live comfortably amid all this modern "freedom" only if one merely understands it and does not wish to participate in it." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Nationalism:

"The nationalist does not only not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." - George Orwell

Follow Philistia:

War:

"War itself is the enemy of the human race." - Howard Zinn

Tough Love:

"Tough love is just the right phrase: love for the rich and privileged, tough for everyone else." - Noam Chomsky

Neoliberalism:

"At their most eloquent, proponents of neoliberalism sound as if they are doing poor people, the environment, and everybody else a tremendous service as they enact policies on behalf of the wealthy few." - Noam Chomsky

Principles of Liberty:

“Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.” - Bertrand Russell